Electronics can be divided into a simple hierarchy consisting of devices such as integrated circuit (IC) chips, packages, printed circuit boards (PCB), and systems. The package is the interface between an IC chip, and a PCB. IC dies are made from semiconductor materials such as silicon. Dies are then assembled into a package such as a quad flat pack (QFP), pin grid array (PGA), or ball grid array (BGA), using wire bonding (WB), tape automated bonding (TAB), or flip chip (FC) bumping assembly techniques. The packaged die is then attached either directly to a PCB or to another substrate, which is defined as the second level of packaging.
Ball grid array (BGA) packaging technology is an advanced semiconductor packaging technology, which is characterized in that an IC die is mounted on a front side of a substrate, and a plurality of conductive elements such as solder balls are arranged in a matrix array, customarily referred to as ball grid array, on a backside of the substrate. The BGA allows the semiconductor package to be bonded and electrically connected to an external PCB or other electronic devices. The BGA package may be employed in a memory such as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and others.
A flip-chip (FC) packaging technology comprises an IC die, an interconnect system, and a substrate. An IC die is connected to the front side of the substrate with a plurality of solder bumps, wherein the solder bumps forming a metallurgical interconnection between the die and the substrate. The die, the solder bump, and the substrate form a flip-chip package. Further, a plurality of balls may form a ball grid array at the backside of the substrate and connect the flip-chip package to a PCB.
A Package on Package (PoP) device is an IC packaging technique to vertically combine multiple packages. Two or more packages are installed on top of one another, i.e. stacked, with an interface to route signals between them. This allows higher density, for example in the mobile telephone/PDA market. In a PoP device, individual dies may be packaged either separately or with multiple dies in each separate individual package, and then the separate individual packages may be brought together and interconnected to form a PoP device so that the individual dies in the separate individual packages may be integrated together in order to perform desired tasks.
The PoP technology is ideally suited for wireless communication systems that merge computing and communications. Wireless communication systems that merge computing and communications require different system hardware technologies with multi-functions, such as digital, analog, radio frequency (RF), and optical circuitries. A wireless communication system may include various dies such as baseband processors, wireless transceivers, memory, antennas, and discrete passive components such as resistors and capacitors. Power distribution network impedance can be high among various components of a wireless communication system and needs to be reduced.
The drawings, schematics and diagrams are illustrative and not intended to be limiting, but are examples of embodiments of the disclosure, are simplified for explanatory purposes, and are not drawn to scale.